The Life and Times of Gordianus the Finder:

A Partial Chronology 1

Historical Notes 2 6 5

Tusculan Disputations

Gordianus the Finder, detective of ancient Rome, was introduced in a novel called Roman Blood, first published in 1991.

Over the course of the eight subsequent novels and eighteen short stories of the Roma Sub Rosa series, Gordianus has progressed from the age of thirty to the age of sixty-one. His concubine, Bethesda, has become his wife, and his family has expanded to include a daughter, two adopted sons (one born a slave), and four grandchildren ("a typically Roman extended family," as the classicist Mary Beard commented in the Times Literary Supplement). He has tubbed elbows with the most famous men and women of his time, including Caesar, Cicero, Marc Antony, Pompey, Crassus, and Cleopatra. He has taken part (usually behind the scenes) in many of the most important events of his era, witnessing the final decades of the Roman Republic as it disintegrates into the civil wars that ulti-mately will give rise to the empire of the Caesars.

Through it all, Gordianus's adventures and investigations have been followed by readers in fifteen languages, and a fair number of these readers (thanks to the invention of e-mail) have seen fit to contact his creator with comments, questions, words of encouragement, and notification of the occasional typographical error.